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Sony to slash 8,000 jobs

Sony has announced plans to cut 8,000 jobs and 10 per cent of its manufacturing sites by March 2010 as the recession takes its toll.

The Japanese company made the announcement following large-scale layoffs in the technology industry last week from the likes of Adobe, AT&T and Viacom.

Sony also said that it would begin outsourcing parts of its semiconductor business, in which unnamed third parties will take care of Sony's planned increase in manufacturing of CMOS image sensors for use in mobile phones.

Overall, Sony said that it will reduce the investment in its electronics business by 30 per cent by 2010.

The company added that it has already undertaken certain short-term measures, including adjusting production and lowering inventory levels.

Sony has postponed plans to expand the site where it assembles LCD televisions for the European market at the Nitra plant in Slovakia. By the end of this year, it will cut production at two overseas sites, including a centre in France which manufactures tape and other recording media.

Sony has not yet commented on where the redundancies will be made from its 160,000 staff worldwide.

"We are now starting to review each country, business, manufacturing site and sales operation, so the regional breakdown is under review," a spokeswoman told vnunet.com.

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